


scattered pieces (who i am)

by bonebo



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Implied Death, Implied Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 04:18:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12880038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonebo/pseuds/bonebo
Summary: The sharp buzz of his earpiece coming to life startles Jesse McCree; makes him flinch a little, falter in his footsteps as he climbs the ramp into the transport carrier taking him and Blackwatch’s newest--agent? Weapon? Sometimes it’s hard to tell--back to headquarters.“Status report.”Gabriel sounds as tired as Jesse feels, his voice subdued and weary over the crackle of the earpiece. It makes a sudden, sharp pang of longing bolt through him, a desire to be back at base, back home, to rub those strong shoulders that carry the weight of the world and help his Commander unwind.“How’s our newest asset holding up?”(my entry into Classified, the Blackwatch Zine)





	scattered pieces (who i am)

The sharp buzz of his earpiece coming to life startles Jesse McCree; makes him flinch a little, falter in his footsteps as he climbs the ramp into the transport carrier taking him and Blackwatch’s newest--agent? Weapon? Sometimes it’s hard to tell--back to headquarters.

 _“Status report.”_ Gabriel sounds as tired as Jesse feels, his voice subdued and weary over the crackle of the earpiece. It makes a sudden, sharp pang of longing bolt through him, a desire to be back at base, back home, to rub those strong shoulders that carry the weight of the world and help his Commander unwind. _“How’s our newest asset holding up?”_

Jesse waits until he’s inside the aircraft to answer--until he can see Genji, slouched in one of the corner seats with his forearms braced on his knees, body doubled over like he’s about to be sick. He’s messy with blood--the blood of his family, Jesse realizes again, the blood of the people who watched him grow up, of the people who ordered him to be killed--and even from where he stands in the doorway, Jesse can see the shake of his mismatched hands, the way the crimson-spattered fingers twitch and tremble.

The Blackwatch logo engraved into his chestplate is saturated in the mess, blood pooling in the curves of metal and swallowing up the lines of skull and sword in a wash of red. 

“I dunno yet, boss.” Jesse sighs, stepping forward so the door can rise and seal shut behind him--taking away the dying sunlight, along with Genji’s view of the town he once loved, now surely only a harbor for his worst memories. “I’m gonna talk to him for a bit… see what’s going on in his head. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

He clicks off the earpiece after Gabriel’s worried goodbye and crosses the aircraft to drop into the seat by Genji’s side with a long, low whistle. He keeps his eyes fixed forward and down, studying the tread of his boots and pretending he doesn’t see the way Genji flinches at his noise.

“You did a lot of work out there, darlin’.” Jesse leans back in the seat, finally glances over--and is saddened to find that Genji won’t meet his gaze, won’t even lift his head from where it hangs low between his shoulders. The red glow of his eyes is softened against his grimy silver faceplate, but still a beacon of his lost humanity in the dimness of the carrier. 

“...Genji?”

“I thought I would feel better, after this--after I killed them.” His voice is a quiet, hushed thing, made especially somber by the echo in the silent aircraft. Dragonblade lays on the floor between his feet, sheathed and harmless for now; but the hilt is smeared with blood, once-gleaming metal tarnished by browning shades of drying gore. “But… I don’t. I don’t feel better at all.”

Jesse sits up a little, suddenly wary. Beside him Genji’s hands twitch, then curl into tight fists, and the sudden, intensifying glow of those cybernetic eyes is all the warning Jesse needs.

They both hit their feet at the same time. Jesse has kicked aside Dragonblade and drawn Peacekeeper in the same breath, and though the barrel stays pointed at the wall and not at Genji’s head, the threat--promise--of his weapon is still very real. Genji stands across from him with shuriken glittering between his knuckles and his shoulders heaving, the muscles in his forearm twitching under the scars of his skin. 

Their eyes lock--Genji’s gaze is burning and electric-red, a demon come to life. His body is quivering with the tension locked beneath what remains of his skin. Jesse stares him down and can’t help the shiver of nervousness that shoots through his belly.

Blackwatch, and Deadlock before that, have both all but beaten the fear out of him; he’s slow to panic anymore, because between the two there’s little remaining that he hasn’t encountered before. But looking into Genji’s eyes, there’s a wild, raw kind of fury and pain that Jesse’s never seen--something inhuman, of a different realm--and that is enough to almost frighten him.

“Easy, Genji.” Jesse licks his lips and slowly holsters Peacekeeper--watches Genji’s eyes track the motion, darting between the gun and Jesse’s face until they eventually settle on Dragonblade’s hilt, just out of reach to his right. The shuriken rock in the slits of his knuckles, a slow back and forth. “Easy, now… you’re alright, darlin’. We’re alright. We’re both good here, yeah?”

Genji is silent, frozen where he stands like he’s turned to stone. Jesse waits for two pounding heartbeats, then slowly reaches out and molds his palm to the cool curve of Genji’s armored cheek. He doesn’t pull away when Genji startles, clearly not expecting the touch, and can’t contain his quiet sigh of relief as he watches Genji gradually come back to himself.

“There you go, sweetheart.” Jesse strokes his thumb lightly across the scarred skin of Genji’s cheekbone, and is rewarded by the flutter of patchy lashes as those electric eyes soften, then close. He only dares to take a step closer when he’s heard the soft _snikt_ of the shuriken retreating back into their housing. “That’s it…”

Slowly--like leading some wild, injured thing--Jesse coaxes Genji to sit back down, and breathes a sigh of relief when Genji’s shoulders finally slump. The vents in the back of his head hiss steam as he decompresses, and slowly the tension starts to leak from his body. Jesse pulls his hand back to search through his pockets for some stress relief, and for a few moments they sit in silence.

“Thank you,” Genji says, his voice subdued in the quiet. Jesse shrugs and lights the cigarillo he’d fished out, his cheeks hollowing as he sucks the fire to life.

“Ain’t no thing. You’d do the same for me.”

“I would,” Genji agrees, after a moment of silent consideration. “Although I would not be so quick to say our situations are exactly comparable--”

“I know a thing or two about trying to change your past, Genji.” Jesse bites down on his cigarillo, then tugs up his sleeve--exposing the chained lock and skull inked into his forearm, stark black against tawny skin. “And I know you can’t do it by yourself. You need friends, and you got us.”

He thumps the Blackwatch brand engraved into Genji’s chest pointedly, and is almost proud of the sudden look of shame that crosses Genji’s face--because between the late nights spent lying awake in their bunks talking about nothing or the impromptu counseling sessions in Gabriel’s office, Genji should know that he has people here, close by, that care about him.

Jesse knows he’s said as much before, on one of the nights where he got too drunk on post-mission euphoria and wound up tangled in the sheets in a cheap hotel in Bolivia with his arms full of desperate cyborg and the air too thick to breathe. 

He wonders suddenly if Genji recalls the memory as often--as fondly--as he does.

There will be time to ask later, Jesse thinks, rubbing his cigarillo out against his boot as the carrier comes to life; time to be awkward and nervous, to go through a million first times all over again, to re-learn how his body fits tucked up against another. For now, he settles back against the wall and pulls out his communicator, and it’s with the warm weight of Genji leaning against his shoulder--the cool brush of Genji’s fingers, lying over the still-exposed skin of his tattoo--that he types out a quick message to Gabriel.

_We’re gonna be okay._


End file.
